How many acoustical panels do I need?

If just there was a simple answer to that question.

That would also make our job a lot easier 😉

However, this is unfortunately not the case.

To ensure a room is in balance acoustically, there is many factors to consider. This including the size of the room, what the intended use of the room is, and what the other interior consists of.

Luckily there is some general guideline and a rule of thumb that can be applied anywhere, still including that it is necessary to consider the above as well.

The acoustical rule of thumb

The acoustical rule of thumb says:

“To create good acoustics in a room the walls must be covered with acoustic material equal to 10-20% of the flooring area.”

This means that if you have a 50 m2 living room, you should add approximately 5-10 m2 saound absorbing elements to the walls.

A DAMPA Silent Board is approximately 1 m2 no matter the size you choose.

(The 600x1500mm panel = 0.9m2, and the 600x1800mm panel = 1.08 m2).

Therefore, looking at this example, you would need to ad 5-10 DAMPA® Silent Boards to the living room area. However, this is not the complete truth.

As we wrote earlier there is many others factors to consider as well.

Divide your room into zones

To get closer to the answer of how many panels you need, we have to consider the most important factor: In what kind of room are you planning to install the DAMPA® Silent Boards?

It matters because there is a huge different in the acoustical needs in different rooms – is it in the large living room with multiple purposes? Or is it the small office? Or maybe in the hall-way?

In the larger rooms it can be an advantage to divide the room into different zones.

There might be different purposes for your living room area that might include a dining area, kitchen, the actual living room and maybe a bunch more.

When dividing the area into zones, you get a better view on the actual purpose of the zone and the actual acoustical needs – because now we need to look at the interior.

If you have a large soft sofa, with cozy pillows and rug, there might not be a huge need for more acoustic material in the living room zone, whereas you might experience acoustical challenges in the dining zone, as there is not that many places the sound can be absorbed.

If you have divided the dining area in a zone and that zone is e.g. 20 m2, you then need, according to the rule of thumb, approximately 2-4 DAMPA® Silent Boards, depending on how large your acoustical challenge is and the general interior of the zone.

A little goes a long way

So, there is many factors to consider, when optimizing your acoustics and it might seem as an impossible task. But remember, a little goes a long way and you can always ad more sound absorbing material should you need it.

You are also more that welcome to contact us at hello@dampa.dk if you have any questions.